Alex Zawacki (Rochester University) talks about ghosts in Catholic literature, with special reference to a Middle English text, The Gast of Gy.For Alex's article on The Gast of Gy, see here.
Holli Emore, the Executive Director of Cherry Hill Seminary in South Carolina, talks about ministry in the modern pagan community.Ms Emore is the author of Constellated Ministry: A Guide for Those Serving Today's Pagans.
Author Phil Hine talks about the theory that religion sprang from worship of the reproductive organs.Our point of departure is the curious book A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus by the 18th century scholar Richard Payne Knight.See further the posts on Phil's blog here and here.
Fr Tom Plant of Rikkyo University talks about the links between Christian mysticism, Platonist philosophy and the Shin school of Buddhism. His book The Lost Way to the Good can be found here.
Dr Will Pooley (Bristol University) talks about his research into historical witchcraft beliefs in France.
Dr Cressida Ryan (Oxford University) talks about how the Protestant Reformers grappled with issues of Greek and Latin translation when constructing their new religious system.
Dr Joel Bordeaux of the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) talks about the interaction of indigenous Indian traditions with Western religious movements from colonial times onwards.[There is some interference on the first 5 minutes of the recording.]
Writer and researcher Julia Phillips talks about beliefs in witchcraft as presented in Victorian newspapers and other sources, which is the subject of her PhD work at Bristol University.
Historian and writer Francis Young talks about the intersection of politics and the magical arts in British history, as discussed in his new book Magic in Merlin's Realm.
It's sometimes said that modern Western culture offers a spiritual supermarket in which the buyer can browse the shelves for products from around the world before taking them home to consume. Victorian London was much the same. This episode looks at the work of the priest and journalist Charles Maurice Davies, who wrote on the diversity of religious life in late-19th century London.
Sociologist and writer Dr Keith Kahn-Harris talks about the place of Hebrew and other languages in Jewish religion and culture. Dr Kahn-Harris is the author of The Babel Message: A Love Letter to Language.
Prof. Ronald Hutton is one of the world's leading historians of religion. In this episode, he talks about the theory that elements of ancient paganism survived into the Christian centuries; and he gives a preview of the contents of his forthcoming book on supernatural female figures in Christian cultures, Queens of the Wild.